Receive the Holy Spirit
And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, " Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20:22) This verse has been rolling around in my head for a few days for some reason. I suppose it might be because of some of the teachings I have been listening to that have both enlightened and fascinated me but at the same time has disturbed my spirit a bit much. They are not disturbing me so much because of conviction of error in my thinking. What disturbs me is the similarity of the spirit I sense in these teachers to the rigid ways in which I was raised in religion that nearly suffocated all hope, joy and life out of me for many years. At the same time I do not want to make the mistake of following a knee-jerk reaction by going to another equally dangerous extreme as it is so easy to do. Most of my life I have tried to discover the real truth instead of just following what people around me insisted was correct or popular or comfortable. That has gotten me crosswise t...